


yours forgivingly (because i must forgive my enemies, mustn’t i?)

by clickingkeyboards



Category: Murder Most Unladylike Series - Robin Stevens
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Detectives, Hurt No Comfort, M/M, Murder, Stephen Gets Away With It
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-23
Updated: 2021-01-23
Packaged: 2021-03-15 19:49:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,493
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28943979
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clickingkeyboards/pseuds/clickingkeyboards
Summary: Lord Hastings is arrested for a crime that he didn’t commit, and the Wells siblings are united in their grief.Hazel relies on Stephen to keep her steady throughout the months until the Trial, when Bertie comes across valuable evidence and the truth begins to surface.
Relationships: Stephen Bampton/Bertie Wells
Comments: 1
Kudos: 11





	yours forgivingly (because i must forgive my enemies, mustn’t i?)

“They’ve taken him away.”

We started at the voice in the doorway, and I turned to see Stephen standing there, a hollow look in his hazel eyes. “He’s gone with the police.”

“That’s it, then.” Bertie reached out a careless hand and grabbed Stephen’s wrist, pulling him to sit down on the bed beside him. As if we weren’t watching, he laid his head on Stephen’s shoulder and sighed. “It’s over.”

“I’m sorry,” he said, sounding sick and ill and tired, and tired as I was. Murder is exhausting and awful and sickly, and I wish that it would never happen again.

Daisy got to her feet in a rush, her face an awful red and twisted up with tears, sadness and hurt locking her lips together and stray tears running down her cheeks. I reached for her hand and she pulled away, making upset groaning noises and tugging on her plaits, tilting her head from side to side. After a moment of this curious repetitive movement, she pulled on her plaits particularly hard and then wiped at her face aggressively. “AGH!” she screamed suddenly, so loud that I heard her voice catch at its limit in the back of her throat, and I felt the heat and the fury radiating from her body. “WHY CAN’T ANYBODY BE GOOD?”

* * *

The house was dark and cold after that. Beanie and Kitty left without saying goodbye, only whispering to me on the stair before leaving in a rush with Kitty’s father. Stephen Bampton stayed, staunchly standing by Bertie as he flew into fits of anger and locked himself in his room and stalked up and down the halls at all hours of the night. I hardly left Daisy’s side for the rest of that long, awful week, sitting at her bedside and hugging her for hours, reading her books and begging her to eat, picking apart the Jack the Ripper case until she was mumbling nonsensically as she drifted off to sleep.

We went back to Deepdean. Nobody would look at me or Daisy, and she didn’t seem to mind the pity. I knew that she did, secretly, because Daisy Wells does not do pity. It seemed that she had suddenly realised that she was human, that she was mortal, that the world had pointed parts which she couldn’t blunt.

Letters came once a fortnight, telling us how Bertie was faring. Stephen Bampton’s handwriting was scratchy and comforting and Daisy awaited his letters, even though she staunchly upheld her dislike for him. “I don’t like him with my brother, Watson,” she would say. “It doesn’t feel right to me.”

I agreed more and more as Stephen’s letters arrived, The Trial looming ever closer. It sounded too good to be true, this vulnerable version of Bertie that Stephen did us a service by placating. Daisy tried to wish him out of existence. I asked if we should write to Bertie, but she said that Stephen would read them. Stephen hadn’t seemed that cruel over Easter, but I trusted Daisy’s judgement.

Uncle Felix called to say that we were to appear at The Trial. I was going to say no; I had the option to refuse, after all. Why wouldn’t I? But then Daisy accepted, because she practically had to, and then she turned to me with wide blue eyes and mouthed _please_ , and I agreed without hesitation.

* * *

We motored up to London a week before school ended. My father telephoned to say that he was going to take us away on a holiday in Europe after The Trial finished. Daisy pointed out that ‘in Europe’ was dreadfully vague, but I didn’t mind.

We met Bertie and Stephen outside the hotel, leaning up against the wall and smoking while discussing something that they abruptly stopped when they saw us. “DAISY!” Bertie yelled, running over as fast as he could to sweep her up in an enormous hug as she leapt at him with a shriek.

“BERTIE!”

Uncle Felix smiled at them fondly, accepting Bertie’s hug and greeting Stephen with a handshake. “How are you doing, Mister Bampton?”

“Alright,” he said with a shrug, glancing at Bertie. “Rather a shock to have all of this laid out in front of us, though.”

I knew that I was glowing up at him, all the previous suspicion of his relationship with Bertie melting away when he smiled at me and said, “Hey, Hazel! It’s so nice to see you!”

“You too!” I said, giddy as I shook his hand, playing at being a grown-up. “It’s all quite scary, isn’t it?”

“I feel like an adult all of a sudden,” he agreed with a nervous laugh, before lowering his voice. “How’s Daisy bearing up? Can’t imagine how they feel, their father being a murderer.”

I shook my head and admitted what I hadn’t dared to say to anybody before him. “Not good.”

* * *

The day before the trial was heavy and sick, and Bertie was nowhere to be seen. Stephen and Daisy had gone on a hunt for him and turned up nothing, while I had asked the hotel staff. Assuming that he was off smoking somewhere, we decided to begin to lay out our evidence without him.

Bertie hightailed it down the stairs of the hotel and into the drawing room that we were occupying like a war counsel as if someone was chasing him. “UNCLE FELIX!” he yelled, and deposited two books on the table while gasping.

One was a poetry book, the corner of a page torn out. The other was a small leather notebook of Mr Curtis’ — the one that has vanished at Fallingford but been deemed unimportant to both the prosecution and the defence. A page with dates from 1928 was bookmarked with a scrap of paper.

“It’s not Dad,” he gasped out, staggering up against the wall and burying his head in his hands. “It’s not Dad, it’s not.”

I didn’t understand. Daisy did. She tumbled out of her chair with force and ran to the door, slamming it shut and drawing the bolt across. The murderer was in the room with us and she knew who it was, from the look in Bertie’s eyes.

“Bertie, I think you’ve had rather too much to drink,” said Stephen’s gentle, soothing voice from the other side of the room, and I understood at once.

“Please sit with me,” I said to him as Bertie cried and Uncle Felix fumbled over the evidence and Bertie’s nonsensical hastily-written explanation. I tried to sound as terrified as possible and it took very little effort. “There might be a murderer right here, and I’m so scared!”

He patted my shoulder awkwardly and took a seat beside me. “There, Hazel, it’ll be okay. I’m sure that Bertie’s just upset himself, it will blow over soon.”

With bright eyes boring into me across the room, Daisy nodded almost imperceptibly. “Daisy,” I called out, wobbling my voice, “can you come here? Please, I’m so…” I wiped my eyes and shook my shoulders. “I’m so afraid!”

She rushed over, playing at being the concerned best friend, and I suddenly had the strength to do what Daisy had bid me to do with her eyes. I seized Stephen by his wrist. Alarm caught up in his body and he tried to pull free. I don’t know how I held on.

Daisy clamped a hand down on his shoulder and winked at me.

Uncle Felix finally looked up from the evidence and fixed his eyes on Stephen. “Lucy,” he said, without moving his gaze, “restrain him.”

“NO!” Stephen wrenched his wrist from my grasp and rushed from his seat, shoving Daisy off of him and rushing towards Bertie, as if to beg for his protection. “It’s a mistake, I didn’t…”

Frozen in place, leaning against the wall, Bertie didn’t react. All he did was stare at Stephen with absolutely nothing in his gaze, shaking his head. “I’m sorry, Steph.”

Lucy grasped Stephen by his shoulder and he didn’t fight, turning his eyes down and not looking at anybody in the room. I felt sick to my stomach, betrayed by somebody I thought of as a friend.

“How could you?” Bertie asked, and his voice held tremors of barely-suppressed anger. “ _How could you?_ ”

“Because it wasn’t supposed to mean anything!” he shouted suddenly, raking his hands through his hair. “It was meant to solve a problem! I didn’t… I’m not a killer. I would never hurt anybody else.”

Bertie was motionless, staring at Stephen as if he was a caged animal, some strange mythical creature that he didn’t understand. “You hurt me.”

* * *

Uncle Felix came up to our room later on, face ashen and sick. Daisy and I were sitting with Bertie, keeping him company as he swallowed down his sadness and listened to Daisy read books aloud.

“Uncle Felix?” Daisy asked. 

“They’ve taken him away,” he said, looking at Bertie, waiting for his reaction.

Bertie burst into tears. 


End file.
